The present invention relates to an electrostatic printing method, by which electrostatic latent image is formed on the electrostatic information recording medium on a drum and the electrostatic printing is performed, using said drum as original plate.
Conventionally, high resolution photographing technique has been practiced, utilizing silver halide graphic method, electronic photographic technique, television technique, solid state image sensor (such as CCD), etc. However, these methods are disadvantageous in that, when image recording is of high quality and high resolution, the treatment process is more complicated, and when the process is simple, the memory function is lacking or the image quality is basically inferior.
The present applicant has already proposed a method to form electrostatic latent image on electrostatic information recording medium by exposure under voltage application (Japanese Patent Application No. 63-121592), by which it is possible to record the image with high quality and at high resolution for long time through simple process and to repeatedly record and reproduce the memorized characters, line drawings, images and code (1,0) information as desired with the image quality suitable for each purpose.
When printing is performed using an electrostatic latent image with very high resolution as original plate, latent image is directly turned to visible image by toner and it is transferred. Because toner particles are attached on original plate and these are then detached and this procedure is repeated in this process, the original image is often damaged and it is difficult to accomplish perfect printing.